Talent always trumps glamour
Play
It's no wonder singer Jennifer Kim has taken so well to her role as one of the coaches on "The Voice" - she says working on the talent show was one of "the 10 things I wanted to do before I die".
“I want to see if I can change people’s perception and prove that it’s the voice that matters, not the look,” she tells Praew magazine.
Well, if anyone embodies that, it’s Jennifer. Not to demean her appearance at all, but she recalls an occasion a decade ago when a nightspot rejected her for a singing gig solely because of her looks, even while admitting she had a beautiful voice.
“One of the staff told me the rumour was that my looks just didn’t fit such a nice place. But when I had a hit with my song ‘Kid Tueng Ther Tuk Tee’, they welcomed me back, gave me the prime slot and paid me a huge fee.”
Kim was soon at the top of her game, singing at all the best clubs and much-watched on YouTube, but she couldn’t help noticing that no one was offering her advertising work on TV.
“Take me and Koh Mr Saxman, for example – we’re both famous and leaders in our genres of music, but we’ve never been approached to do ads. Why? Well, it’s simple: Koh is bald and fat, and I don’t have the kind of image they’re looking for. Maybe I look Chinese and cheap!”
It’s not like Jennifer really wants advertising work. She’s just curious whether it’s possible to change social attitudes so that ability and talent are valued above appearance. “A woman with my looks doesn’t have a lot of choices, even with a beautiful voice.”
In her case, though, surely talent has shone through. She’s one of the country’s most sought-after singers, sometimes with three gigs in a single day.
To keep that success going, she works hard to maintain her voice, carefully planning every performance. Only when that’s done does she attend to “the image”.
